Dungeons and Doctors
by Anthropormorphia
Summary: While investigating a dormant store of energy on Earth, 2008, the Doctor gets trapped inside a game of Dungeons and Dragons, leaving Rose on the outside determined to get him out.
1. Travelling in the TARDIS

A/N: Just a quick couple of things. Major props to my co-writer and consultant Greg. Half the credit for this story belongs to him. Also, if anyone can think of a better title, please let me know, or leave it in the feedback. (Constructive criticism welcomed.). Lastly, enjoy!

Traveling in the TARDIS, Rose had long since discovered, involved a surprising amount of running about, laughing wildly and attacking seemingly random switches at short intervals. Well, not on her part. Mostly she stood, in the middle of a bustling crowd of one man, giggling, and trying to be out of the way while keeping firmly in the way as much as possible. Occasionally, he'd shove her playfully out of his way, making her giggle even harder, and start yelling gleefully about wherever they were en route to. Today, following a slightly different pattern, he loudly announced, as though to a large audience, that Rose would choose today's destination. Caught off guard, she hesitated, prompting him to start extolling the virtues of exploring places one's never seen before. Rose had been doing a lot of that recently, and whole-heartedly agreed, but with an entire universe to choose from, she didn't know where to begin. He never quite got this, though, and today was no exception.

"Come on!" He cried, yanking a lever and staring hard at her. "There's got to be millions of places you've never even heard of! Pick one!"

And he was on the go again, dodging past her to type furiously at a nearby console. Watching him, a little enviously, she laughed again.

"That doesn't even make sense!" And she folded her arms across her Tweety-Pie t-shirt, shaking her bleached head.

"Well…" he paused, scrabbling for the right phrase, just for a second, before finding it and running over to a series of handles which he twisted in sequence. "Pick somewhere you've never been, then!"

This did not really narrow it down for Rose, who picked the first place that popped into her head.

"I dunno…Cornwall?"

He paused again, staring, this time incredulously at her.

"Cornwall?!"

And in the face of huge brown eyes and perfectly tousled hair, coupled with a bemused frown, Rose couldn't help but feel a little embarrassed about how boring her choice was. Still, she stuck to it, stubbornly.

"Mum always said we'd go on holiday there, but we never managed it…" and the continual of the frown made her trail off, and finally, he picked up – just a little – on the enormity of the choice he offered her.

"Well," he conceded, "I _could _use a nice, relaxing day at the beach, but that's it, OK? _One _ice cream, and maybe a quick trip to the Eden Project, and then we're off!"

She giggled again at what she privately called his "stern teacher face", and accepted the compromise.

"Throw in a flake on the ice cream and you've got a deal!"

He grinned fleetingly at her before racing off once again…

"Deal!"…and skidding to halt to get a better look at a monitor he'd just glanced at. "Wait! Wait-wait-wait-wait-wait! What's _that_?!"

"What's what?" Rose wasn't worried yet. Nothing was sparking, throwing them off balance, or emitting the wrong noises. She sidled closer to the monitor, arms still folded, and peered curiously over his shoulder.

"That's a _huge_ amount of energy!" He said to the world in general, groping for his glasses and putting them on. "It looks dormant though, and I can't quite…" he tapped a few keys. "Hmm."

"Hmm?" Enquired Rose. The Doctor continued to puzzle over the screen, pushing his glasses back up his nose. "Doctor?" she prompted him, "What's hmm?"

"Hmm?" He looked around at her, as though surprised to see her. "Oh, um, well, it's hard to tell." He gestured at the screen, which she couldn't make head nor tail of.

"Hard to tell what?"

"Well, what kind of energy it is. Whether there's something living there, or a craft of some kind…I just can't tell without going down there and having a look."

"Where is it?" She asked, torn between being disappointed about the imminent cancellation of the beach trip, or excited at the prospect of another adventure. He tapped more keys and consulted the screen once more.

"Cornwall," he told her, sounding surprised. "And we'd be landing in the early twenty first century, probably around about…2008?"

"Great! Let's go!"

He stared up at her once more.

"What?"

"Come on! Things to find out, stuff to do!" She poked his arm. "Let's get going!"

Grinning massively now, he set to with gusto, running and switching and laughing once more. And she tried her best to stay out the way.


	2. Meet the Adventurers

The Doctor, as usual, had been right. They landed in Cornwall, in 2008, on a truly glorious day (weather wise) in late June, behind what appeared to be somebody's shed. The closest Rose had ever really gotten to a garden was Hyde Park, and to her, this garden was from a TV show. A large green lawn, bejewelled with Technicolor flowerbeds, surrounded by high hedges on three sides, and a slightly squat looking cottage half hidden under climbing roses and ivy on the other. She took a deep breath, and grinned at the Doctor, feeling sure that Cornwall had been a very good choice. No one was running, no one was screaming (except the children two houses down, but Rose for one thought that to hear someone screaming with laughter was a nice change), and the whole day felt infused with a warm, glowing apathy, telling your mind that all you wanted was a cold drink, maybe some ice cream, and a nice long snooze in the shade.

"Alright, Mr Smarty Pants," she said, nudging the Doctor in the ribs. "What kind of flowers are they?"

"Busy Lizzies." He replied promptly, turning to look at the bright pink cluster Rose had indicated.

"Nope," she replied, grinning hugely.

"No? What d'you mean no?" He demanded, gesturing to the flowers. "They're Busy Lizzies."

She shook her head, still grinning.

"Sweet-peas," she told him.

And they argued about it all the way to the front door, which stood half open, revealing a little of the cool, slightly dim interior. Somewhere inside there were voices; barely audible over the sound of next-door's lawn mower, which had just started up. Still bickering, they were caught off guard when a voice said:

"No, she's right. They are Sweet-peas."

Throwing the Doctor a triumphant look, Rose turned to assess the new comer. Leaning with barefooted casualness in the doorframe was a tallish girl in her late teens, watching them with an easy, friendly smile.

"Have you come about the Thing?" she continued, and the Doctor seized his chance.

"Right! Yes! The Thing. I'm the Doctor, and this is Rose, and we're here about the Thing. What Thing?"

"Well," the girl replied, "we know that isn't really what it's called, but we haven't the faintest idea what it is. We just found it, during Mum's annual clean-the-whole-house-freak-out. I'm Genie, by the way. Yes, that's Genie as in lamp, and yes I've heard them all." She shook their hands, and opened the door further to admit them. "It's in the living room." She told them, and led them inside.

The living room itself was nothing out of the ordinary, but it did seem extraordinarily crowded with teenage boys and massive amounts of paper strewn willy-nilly across the carpet. In the centre of the room stood – impossibly – a perfect sphere, completely still, emitting a glow something like a torch powered by very feeble batteries. Genie ushered them into the room first, and stood behind them, once more leaning on the doorframe.

"That's my brother Robbie," she said, and a slightly younger boy half waved from across the room. The rest are respectively Greg, Jimmy, Buck and Ivor. Guys, this is the Doctor, and this is Rose."

Rose gave the boys a smile, but the Doctor was already on his knees examining the sphere and gave no acknowledgement.

"You caught us at a bit of an odd time," Genie told Rose. "Mum and Dad are away for the weekend, we're having a D and D mini-fest."

"D and D?"

"Dungeons and Dragons," supplied Ivor, a sandy haired boy lounging on the floor. "We're a big bunch of nerds."

This statement was met by various exclamations from the others, including:

"Speak for yourself!" from Buck, who'd scooched over on the small sofa as much as he could to allow Rose to sit down. It was a tight fit with two people already sat on it, and his arm ended squashed awkwardly between them, the papers in his hand falling into Roses lap. Curious, she picked them up and studied them, though after Buck's name written at the top, she could barely make more sense of it than of the monitor screen in the TARDIS. Scanning down the lists of numbers and notes, she realised that there was another sheet stapled to this one, though it did nothing to enlighten her.

"It's a character sheet," Buck told her. "See, you have your name and the character's name at the top, and what they look like, what race they are, and…"

"Character?" Rose interrupted, still perplexed.

"The character you play in the game," explained Ivor, holding up a similar sheet from his place on the floor. "That's why it's called an RPG."

"RPG?"

"It stands for Role Playing Game," Genie told her, picking up her own character sheet and crossing the room. "You make up a character, and so do your friends, and then you can have virtual adventures. Dungeons and Dragons is set in a kinda magic, medieval type place. I happen to be an elf, and a thief. Buck's an orc warrior."

"Oh." If she were honest, Rose honestly did not see the fun in sitting indoors for hours pretending to be an elf when you could be out doing something, but she maintained an each to their own philosophy. "And what's all these numbers and stuff?"

"They're a note of how good your character is at certain things, and sometimes which dice you have to roll. That's how you make an action, and how it's decided if you achieved it or not."

"Right." This game, Rose decided, was utterly beyond her, so she handed the sheets back to Buck and turned her attention to the Doctor, who was now lying on his back, peering up at the sphere and prodding it with the sonic screwdriver. "Any ideas?"

"Oh, hundreds," he replied, resetting the screwdriver. "But ideas about this particular thing, not many." He suddenly shifted. "What _am_ I lying on?" He reached one hand under his back, pulling out a crumpled sheet of paper, just about making out the name "Jimmy" written at the top before blinding flash of light knocked everyone to the floor with a soft _whoomph_.


	3. Inside the Thing

Rose began to sit up, her head cloudy. Blinking in the light, she could hear the muffled sounds of other people doing exactly the same. She pulled her hair out of her face and stared around the room. It was the same. A glorious day (weather wise), a cluttered, comfortable living room, the sphere stood dead centre, but now the glow was pulsating, giving a lighthouse effect. A second wave of observation brought home the information that while Robbie, Jimmy and Greg were also picking themselves up, Genie, Buck, Ivor and - _oh, please, no! _– the Doctor were lying unconscious on the floor; the Doctor and Ivor exactly where they had been, Genie and Buck knocked down by the blast. Rose stared, shocked. He looked asleep, though she'd never known him to sleep. Her line of vision was broken suddenly, as Robbie scrambled past to shake his sister.

"Gen? Genie!" He pulled at her arms and hair, and then tried the pulse in her neck before sitting back. "Gina?"

_Genie sat up, blinking in the dark. Her head was fuzzy, cloudy. Her brain ran the systems check that every brain does in this situation. I am alive, I am not in any pain, I am female, and my name is Genie… no. "Genie" didn't feel right. The brain reached a little, and found the name Kohl. Yes. Kohl was the right name. She stood; flipping back her long blonde braid, except her hair was red. Not ginger but a deep, bright crimson. She looked down, to find her jeans and vest replaced with a long, swirling mud brown skirt, a cream blouse and a brown bodice under a glimmering shirt of chain mail. Her bare feet were now wearing heavy black boots, and they carried her forward to a silver topped puddle which showed her reflection to have decidedly pointier ears than she remembered. The eyes, which should have been blue, were a brown so dark they were black and the healthily tanned skin was now chalky white. She didn't dwell on this, because new knowledge was swarming through her head: lock picking, trap and device manipulation, knife throwing, rapier fighting. And there on the floor was a rapier. She picked it up, silver bangles clinking, and turned to see what had become of the others._

The sound of that last questioning name spoken in such a tiny voice jerked Rose properly awake.

"Is she…I mean, she isn't…." she couldn't say that word, because if Genie was, the Doctor would be too. Slowly, the younger boy turned to face Rose.

"She's alive," he said. "But she won't wake up."

As Rose hurried to the Doctor, behind her she could her Greg checking Ivor, and proclaiming him to be the in the same state as Genie.

_Something was tickling his face, so he sat up to push it away. It was his hair, longer than it should have been and suddenly silvery white. He ran a hand through it and felt the tips of pointed ears, startling him into jumping up. His clothes were gone, replaced with robes and gleaming chain mail, and in the nearest puddle he could see that his face, while similar, had differences. Different coloured eyes, deep blue rather than hazel, and paler skin. There was jewellery too. A huge amulet hung about his neck, and an ornate ring stood out on fingers longer than they had been. A greatsword on the floor caught his eye and he picked it up, noticing behind him a patch of shadows darker than the rest. He reeled slightly as new information streamed through his brain; fighting, magic, he knew how to warp the laws of probability. Along with all this, his brain was rejecting the name Ivor. After a brief cast about, one name swam to the front, clearly the one that should be used: Hideoshi. The patch of darker shadow followed him as he moved towards the only other standing figure, which having picked up a rapier, turned to face him. They stared at each other, face to elven face and finally she spoke._

_"Wow. You really are a girly boy elf."_

Ignoring this and everything else for the time being, Rose pored over the Doctor's prone form, placing her hand first on one side of his chest, then on the other, weak with relief to feel the steady beating of both hearts. She stroked his hair a little, and loosened his tie and the top of his shirt.

_He allowed his brain to run the check before he opened his eyes. There were changes. He appeared to only have one heart. He was unharmed though, and he could hear people talking, bickering. He opened his eyes and noted the differences in them, then continued to assess the differences to himself. He appeared to be wearing armour made from animal skins, and as he stood, he'd swear he was taller. He appeared to be in some kind of cave, a steady drip in the background suggested dampness, and sure enough there were puddles dotted about the stone floor. He looked in one of them. His face was grizzled and weather beaten, his hair was long, and roughly tied behind his neck. From a short distance away, a hawk watched him intently, and on the floor lay a staff and a sling. He picked them up, and assessed the skills and data firing in his mind. Spells, he could cast dozens of spells, he could name every stage of the hierarchy of the druidic brotherhood, he could converse with nature – he couldn't WAIT to try that out, and some of the mysteries of the natural world he'd barely had time to ponder before. He studied the two people watching him, opened his mouth to speak, then paused as more information sparked. He assessed this too._

_"I can speak druidic." He paused again, as the title "the Doctor" faded back into an unused part of his brain, and a new name swam forward determinedly. His eyes widened in surprise. "And my name's Tim!"_

Having satisfied herself that there was nothing she could immediately do for the Doctor, Rose turned to look at the slumbering teenagers. Genie and Ivor, like the Doctor, looked just as thought they were sleeping, though Jimmy was blocking her view of Buck as he checked his friend's pulse and response. After a moment, he shook his head.

"He's totally out cold, too."

_Everything was dark. After a moment, he realised he was lying with his eyes pressed against his arm and raised his head. For a second, his focus swam, then he registered a pair of boots not far from his face. He slowly pushed himself up, heavy armour clanking and causing echoes. As he pushed himself to his knees, he took in the whole of the elven girl looking back to the others. He recognised her, and spoke. He was surprised to hear a low, rasping grunting, rather than the words he'd intended. He understood it, but it was clear she didn't as she jumped and turned to face him, only to jump again as she looked squarely at him._

_"Oh, _Buck_!" She breathed, prompting him to try again for normal speech._

_"Help me up?" But his voice was still gravely and rather deep._

_She did, struggling with his weight and the weight of his armour. Unexpectedly, he found he could quite easily carry the weight, and more besides. He looked down and noted his boots, which in the name of his god bore large steel spikes. They thumped loudly on the floor as he strode to a puddle to see what had startled his friend. For a long time, he just stared, saying nothing. His hair was the same, short and brown and perfectly tousled. His face, however, was barely recognisable. His skin had become mottled and grey, thick and leathery. His brow was heavier and his eyes smaller, though not by much. His lower jaw jutted forward, and two long, tusk like teeth curved from his lower lip, ending in points either side of his nose. He made to look at his hands, but thick gauntlets that would lock onto any weapon he took up covered them. On the floor beside him lay a plethora of weapons, one by one he picked them up, and found he knew how to use them, how to fight without them, how to ignore personal damage. The double bladed sword, the dwarfish war axe and the orc double axe he strapped to his back. The heavy steel shield he kept on one arm. Something about the girl was bothering him. Well, something that she'd said._

_"Not Buck." He told her. "Khan."_

Rose and the boys leapt suddenly to their feet as their four afflicted friends sat suddenly bolt upright, eyes open and unfocused, faced the sphere and began rolling dice.


	4. Trogolodytes!

**A/N: Sorry for the delay. Crazy things have been happening.  
Disclaimer: I'm sure you know who's mine and who isn't.**

Rose immediately pounced on the Doctor again, snapping her fingers in front of his face and pleading him to talk with her. He didn't respond. Nor did any of the others.

"What was that roll for?" She demanded, turning to each of the boys.

"Initiative." Replied Greg, shortly, on his knees and riffling through a large pile of paper. "That means they're finding out who goes first in a fight."

This statement brought chaos. Rose demanding more information about the game and two of the boys demanding to know what their friends were fighting, and which adventure it was filled the small space with clamour, until one by one, they all noticed the change in the sphere. Instead of a glowing lemony yellow, it now appeared to be a gargantuan soap bubble, clear but glistening with oily rainbows. It was darker inside than it was out, and the four tiny figures inside were stood on a flat floor, littered with slivery puddles. Gaping, Rose knelt.

"That's them!" She gasped. "But look, their hair! Their clothes..."

"That's their characters," Rob told her. "They really are inside the game!"

"Oh, my god, he's got a tame hawk! Whose character is he?"

"Mine," Jimmy told her. "Want me to tell you about him while Greg figures out which adventure they're in?"

Rose considered it for a second. He wasn't patronising her, which was her first thought. He was being genuinely nice. He seemed understanding, too. She smiled at him.

"Thanks. I just wanna know what they're about to fight, first."

"Trogs." Reported Robbie from his place peering into the sphere.

"What?" Confused as Rose was, the three boys were all heaving sighs of relief. She too stooped to look into the bubble and saw five or six ugly lizard like creatures creeping up on the characters.

"Trogolodytes," Greg explained. "Very weak, very stupid, smell terrible. The only thing they have going for them is a chance to attack while their enemies retch because of the stench."

"Why're they attacking?" Rose asked. "This lot haven't done anything to provoke them."

"Cuz they're so blood thirsty, and love the taste of human flesh."

"Two of them are elves." Robbie pointed out.

"Yeah, but Trogs are stupid." Jimmy reminded him, as Rose flapped her hands for quiet, and in the bubble weapons were drawn.

_They'd worked out they were stuck in the game, and guessed it had something to do with the sphere. What was to be done about it, however, was a subject of much debate. Tim abruptly ended the bickering by drawing their attention to a more pressing matter._

_"What's that smell?" He asked suddenly, sniffing deeply and nearly retching. The others reacted similarly, and Hideoshi managed to choke out:_

_"Trogolodytes!" Before they all heard the hissing behind them._

_Spinning to face the source of the noise, they drew weapons, and with a grunt, Khan swung one of his axes at the nearest attacker. He caught it across the stomach, and bleeding horribly, it staggered back hissing evilly. Another rushed at Kohl, but she dodged to one side and instinctively lashed out with a boot as it stumbled. As her kick landed squarely on the thing's ribcage, and it tried to remain upright, she seemed to remember she was carrying a sword and stabbed at it, but managed only a graze. Hideoshi and Khan had made short work of four opponents, and Tim had dropped another with his sling. One by one, they turned and watched as she ducked past the remaining Trogolodyte's next attack and plunged her rapier into it's chest, nearly to the hilt. She froze for a second, eyes wide, as sticky, pungent liquid gushed from the wound, then yanked back sharply, pulling the sword out and letting her enemy hit the floor. Numbly, she turned to face the others._

_"Is it still a game if we kill them?" _

In the living room, they'd found that if they placed something with a speaker under the bubble, they could hear what was going on. Currently, Robbie was working on the theory that if they placed a microphone there too, they might be able to communicate with the inside of the bubble. Greg had found an adventure that started with a Trog fight, and was slowly amassing more paper as he worked his way through it, trying to calculate every eventuality. Rose and Jimmy were deep in conversation as he explained everything he knew about the game, and his character, and the others characters.

"What does 'chaotic neutral' mean?" She asked, having briefly peered at Genie's sheet.

"Mean's she isn't quite a good guy, but isn't a bad guy either," Jimmy started, then clarified: "She's loyal enough, especially if she's getting paid, but she'll steal, fight, even kill for a good reason without losing any sleep. Why'd you ask about her specifically?"

Rose told him what the girl had said after stabbing the Trogolodyte.

"Well that's weird," Greg interjected, looking up from his papers. "She killed a man out of spite once, because he'd left her in a magic bubble until…."

"No she didn't." Robbie was sorting through various wires and cables, and didn't look up.

"Yeah, she did, it was when…" Greg began again, but was again interrupted by his friend.

"Kohl did. Genie won't even let me kill spiders."

There was a pause as they all digested this thought.

"So…" Rose hopefully tried a new theory. "They're only physically their characters? Their minds are still the same?"

"It would… seem that way, unless…" Greg paused. "Maybe they get more like their characters as they go along."


End file.
